1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to ad delivery methods and systems. In particular, it relates to delivering personalized ads to online users based on user behavior.
2. General Background
Internet advertising has become a prime direct marketing channel for companies selling goods and services. Furthermore, Internet advertising offers the unprecedented opportunity to tailor individualized ads to online users because online users generate behavioral and demographic data that provide insight into their goals and preferences. However, Internet advertising is moving well beyond targeting the user solely by demographic data or by the content of the page being viewed, and is currently being focused on consumers' online behavior. User behavior can be established by tracking user activities online, storing user preferences, etc. Internet advertising, however, is in need of more innovative and effective ways to generate user behavior patterns.
Behavior targeting goes beyond reach, frequency and monetary value of a user and can addresses the goal of online advertising which delivers a relevant ad to an interested user at the right time. Behavioral targeting looks at the past behavior of the users and targets advertisements accordingly. Behavioral targeting can be seen as a basic business practice that allows marketers to segment their audiences into manageable groups, deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, and better manage the relationship between marketers and their customers. Behavior targeting uses integrated data from user's online activities to create a comprehensive profile that can be targeted using delivery mechanisms.
Current systems of behavior targeting, however, typically record every user visit to a website, the visit time, and other information that has proven to be excessive because of the associated storage space required to record such information. In other current systems, a user that visits a website a certain threshold number of visits is automatically tagged as having one behavior so no further action is taken to reflect user behavior changes. As such, current systems have not yet exploited the full potential of behavior targeting on Internet advertising.